


Thorns of Inconvenience

by taichara



Category: The Pale Gate - Erin A. Bisson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:48:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9034985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: An expedition can and often does involve discovering more than one kind of unexpected sharp thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalloway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/gifts).



"Remind me how I let you rope me into this again?"

Grumbling, Spirit pulled his coat-tails free from the briar's thorny clutches for what had to be (he was sure) the thousandth time. Damned vicious briars, sandwoods were; seven shattered hells, at this point he was willing to believe the things were sentient. And of _course_ the trace he'd picked up led right through a thicket of the damn things ...

Kuy's bark of laughter, hot on his heels, didn't make him any less cranky either.

"You let me rope you into this, dear, because you need the work and I don't have thumbs at the moment. Is it _really_ such a hardship hunting things that don't move?"

"Easy for you to say, you can slip through the hedge no problem."

She laughed again, padding ahead -- the barbed briar canes sliding over the plumes of her withers without so much of a snag -- as if she was just driving his point home. Spirit grumbled louder and drew a lesser light-knife out of the ether. He'd just have to machete his way through, then, and no way was he using his sword. The path gleamed ahead in his inner sight, his milky eyes glittering with golden green here in the otherside, and he pushed ahead of Kuy again.

"And I don't mind picking up plant parts, just ask Shan, he gets enough of them from me these days --"

"Hush now, dear, here we are."

Indeed they were; the briars abruptly thinned out into a moss-lined clearing in the sandwood hedge, soft beams of dusty light sifting down through the soaring branches high above their heads. But those were no plants that coiled in aimless masses amongst the blue-green moss, oh no; no delicate petals to be plucked, nor spring green leaves to be harvested.

Threaded through the mosses were splinters and spurs of bone, dense as ivory, red as blood. Sharp bones. Crumpled ribbons of vertebrae and arching cages of ribs. 

And right there in the centre, as if aiming for their hearts, one lone sharp lance of brilliant crimson tipped with shining white. 

The spiraled armament yet stood proud from the heavy skull it sprouted from, untouched.

Spirit swore.

"That's ..."

Padding three precise paces in front of the wondering hunter, Kuy turned in her tracks and stared him down with high humour in her buttery predator's eyes.

"Not a plant?"

"Kuy that's a _cartazon_ \--"

Indeed it was. And just how and when she's gotten wind of an unscavenged greater unicorn skeleton, he couldn't even _begin_ to guess, that was shooting so far above his experience it might as well be in the astral. But Kuy didn't miss a beat; lolling her tongue in a canine grin at his confusion, she turned and loped towards the prize.

"And I'm going to need a good pair of hands to haul it away.

"Come on, dear, it won't get up and move itself. Time's wasting."

All he could do was shake his head, and follow along --


End file.
